Thursday, February 28, 2013

Stacy Phillips daughter, Amber, age 15 suffered a stroke and fell into a coma in 2005. Amber awoke 3 weeks later at Childrens Hospital in Boston with brain damage. On behalf of her daughter, Stacy is suing her daughter’s former doctor for medical malpractice for misdiagnosing viral meningitis. In August 2005 at a checkup Dr. Michelle Lock told Phillips her daughter likely suffered from allergies and sent her home with the allergy medication Flonase. “Phillips said she asked the doctor if other tests could be done, but was allegedly told that no further tests were necessary. When Phillips asked Lock to take a blood sample in case Amber hand meningitis, Lock allegedly ruled out the disease.” According to medical records from the Greater Lowell Pediatrics office, Lock wrote in the medical file that she suspected viral meningitis, but did not perform a spinal tap. Two days later, Phillips found her daughter having a seizure and rushed her to Lowell General Hospital where doctors detected meningitis. After awaking from her coma, Amber needed to learn to walk, eat and speak again. “Phillips was told her daughter would not function above a child's level and will need assistance for the remainder of her life. In court documents, Dr. William Burke, a life-care planning expert, said that based on crude calculations Amber's lifelong care will cost more than $14 million.”

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Hope Schultz is seeking damages for wrongful death, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, and other charges, after her husband died due to faulty dialysis products from Fresenius USA. “Schultz claims that her 50-year-old husband, Michael Schultz, died the day he received his last dialysis treatment, Dec. 17, 2010. "After receiving defendants' defective product, he became ill during and after treatment, and went home. He suffered at home in pain and tremendous weakness until he died later that same day," the complaint states.” Fresenius, based in Waltham, Mass., has been sued dozens of times this year by people or survivors who claim their loved ones were killed or injured by its GranuFlo or NaturalLyte products. "By at least January 2010, defendants had analyzed data and found that 941 patients from 667 facilities had cardiopulmonary arrests, a figure that was over six times higher than of competing products. Defendants knew that the high bicarbonate levels related to their product was an independent risk factor in these deaths," the complaint states. Schultz claims that her husband's "injury and death, like those striking thousands of similarly situated across the country, were avoidable tragedies.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

University of New Mexico Hospital may have to pay more than $100 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit. The potential payouts would be in addition to the $45 million in settlements the state has paid to 118 families since 1998.”UNM hospital officials first disclosed in 1998 that children appeared not to have been given the newest drug therapies for acute lymphoblastic leukemia from 1989 to October 1996.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Matthew J. Bortz, 28, was killed when his motorcycle crashed head-on into a tractor-trailer. Bortz veered into the opposite lane while trying to pass two vehicles in a no-passing zone and failed to calculate the timing correctly and did not allow enough clearance for the oncoming tractor-trailer. “After the collision about 200 feet, the rig veered off the road, sheered a Met-Ed pole and then jackknifed in a field. The driver of the tractor-trailer, Peter P. Polletta, 41, of Springfield, Mo., was not injured.”
D. Seth Fuoti, 21, died after his car crashed into the back of a tractor-trailer. The rig was stopped in traffic when Fuoti’s car crashed into the back of it and became trapped under the truck. Fuoti died of multiple injuries, officials in the coroner's office said. His death also was ruled accidental.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

After two and half days, jurors decided to award Dr. Muhammad Anwar $3.3 million in a wrongful termination lawsuit. In 1990 Anwar had a state contract to provide surgical services to inmates at Central California Women’s Facility. “As California's prison population ballooned, the doctor restricted his own private practice to provide care to the inmates, attorney Mike Ball said. Anwar formed a physicians' group to help prison officials get proper care for the inmates. But in 2005, the state agency abruptly terminated Anwar.” During the trial, Ball argued that prison officials not only breached a contract, but violated his 66-year-old client's due process rights. Ball pointed out that prison officials showed no evidence of wrongdoing by Anwar or even made a complaint against him.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Parents please pay attention! The company Britax has issued a recall of 60,000 convertible car seats due to a choking hazard. “The car seats under the voluntary recall are Britax Boulevard 70-G3, Pavilion 70-G3, and Advocate 70-G3 convertible car seats in the USA .The company reports that the chest pads on the seats pose a choking hazard, as children can bite them and small pieces can come loose.” The products were manufactured between June and August of 2012 and have a tag on the child’s upper left hand side with manufacture date and model numbers on it. Recall model numbers include:
USA: E9LJ91A, E9LJ91M, E9LJ91S, E9LJ92E, E9LJ93P, E9LJ93S, E9LK91A, E9LK31A, E9LK31Q, E9LK32D, E9LK32Z, E9LK33Q, E9LL11A, E9LL11Q, E9LL12D, E9LL12Z, E9LG81A, E9LG83N, E9LG83P, E9LG83X, E9LG83Y, E9LL21A, E9LL23P, E9LL23Y
“Britax is offering free replacement chest pads made of a firmer material that will not tear off.”

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

A woman is seeking punitive and actual damages in a lawsuit she has filed against manufacturer Pfizer, Inc. According to the file the woman took the antidepressant Zoloft during her pregnancy and it caused multiple birth defects in her newborn son. “According to studies, Zoloft has long been linked to birth defects in newborns. In spite of FDA regulations that the new medical evidence requires Pfizer to update the warning label, the company has yet to do so.” Spina bifida, vater syndrome, clubfoot and other related defects are side effects the plaintiff’s baby is suffering from due to the drug, Zoloft. “The complaint says that in 2007, Pfizer knew that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Zoloft doubled the risk of septal heart defects in babies who were born to mothers who took the medication. In studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it indicates that a four-fold increase in heart defects was connected to pregnant women using Zoloft during their first trimester.” Pfizer took no initiative to sufficiently warn pregnant women about the side effects this drug could cause when marketing their product.